The Supreme Court in the said case held that in order to prevent abuse of its process and to cure gross miscarriage of justice, it may reconsider its judgements in exercise of its inherent powers.

It said that the variety of upbringing, the diversity of the population, the disparity in the levels of education and morality and the paramount need for maintaining law and order were fundamental factors and issues that impede India from taking a favourable position to abolish the capital punishment.

[61][62] However, the Supreme Court of India refused to accept the argument and held that the death sentence is pronounced after detailed recording and evaluation of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, thus such procedure justifies the imposition of capital punishment and does not violate Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

But, the Supreme Court of India refused to accept the reasoning and stated that there is no rational basis for concluding the death sentence as unconstitutional because the Indian Constitution does not have an equivalent to the Eighth Amendment.

[72] The Supreme Court recognized that the mitigating factors includes the mental condition, the age of the accused, the possibility of reforming or that the person committed the crime under the superior orders.

He opined that the capital sentencing system, which required 'special reasons' without any guidance on its meaning, essentially left decision-making to the subjective assessment of individual judges, making it arbitrary.

It was discussed that the original idea behind drafting of this section was to discourage assaults by life convicts on the prison staff, but the language chosen by the legislature had widely exceeded its intention.

[75] In Channulal, the Supreme Court, through Justice Kurian Joseph noted that the time was appropriate to review the constitutionality of the death penalty and take into consideration reformative aspects of punishment.

[76] While dissenting on the question of propriety of the death penalty, the remaining two judges on the bench emphasized on the duty of courts to be constitutionally correct, even if its views are counter-majoritarian.

The court reiterated the view in Santosh Kumar Satishbhushan Bariyar v. State of Maharashtra that in death penalty sentencing, public opinion is neither an objective circumstance relating to crime nor to the criminal.

[78] The court discussed various historical influences as well as the reports of the law commission and held that execution by hanging was a fair, just and reasonable procedure within the meaning of Article 21 and hence is constitutional.

In the case of Rishi Malhotra v. Union of India, October 2017, hanging as a method of execution was challenged in a writ petition and it was argued that Section 354(5) CrPC was not only barbaric, inhuman and cruel but also against the resolutions adopted by the United Nations Economic & Social Council (ECOSOC).

It was held that the judges must prepare a balance sheet of aggravating and mitigating circumstance of the crime and criminal and analyze the factors prior to making up choice between death sentence and life imprisonment.

[90] The two bench of Supreme Court held that the nature and gravity of the crime, not the criminal should be considered as an appropriate method, for opting between choice of life imprisonment and death penalty.

The first and foremost contribution of Bariyar judgment is that it undoubtedly rejected the strict channelling of discretion or classification of particular types of offences deserves death sentence.

The Supreme Court in Sangeet v. State of Haryana, November 2012, seriously expressed reservation regarding inconsistent and incoherent application of sentencing policy with respect to analyzing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances.

[93] The court critiqued the process of drawing a balance sheet of aggravating and mitigating circumstances and stated that they cannot be compared with each other as each of the factors are two distinct and different constituents of the incident.

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Khanna noted that the Court in Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, July 1983 required two questions to be answered to determine if a case was rarest of rare.

In the facts of the case, Justice Khanna noted that the appellant had confessed to the crime before a magistrate without compulsion and this, he stated, was the first step back into society and should be treated as a mitigating circumstance.

[100] The court held that the special category of sentence created by Swamy Shraddhanada @ Murli Manohar Mishra v. State of Karnataka, July 2008 was valid in law.

[51] In Accused X v. State of Maharashtra, April 2019, the Supreme Court in this case recognized post conviction mental illness as a mitigating factor to convert death penalty to life imprisonment.

The report observed that the exercise of discretion may depend on local conditions, future developments, and evolution of the moral sense of the community, state of crime at a particular time or place and many other unforeseeable features.

[107] The report also suggested retention of Section 303 of the Indian Penal Code, which provides for mandatory death penalty which was further upheld unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the case of Mithu v. State of Punjab, April 1983.

[75][74] On the matters of irrevocability of capital punishment and erroneous convictions, the report observed that the constitutional and statutory safeguards such as the mercy, the power of appeal and review as well as legal assistance shall ensure that chances of error are kept to the minimum.

[107] The conclusions arrived by the commission are predated to the landmark judgment of Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab, May 1980 and also to the various amendments made in 1973 to the Code of Criminal Procedure.

[141][91][94] The commission extensively studied various aspects of death penalty such as a role of deterrence, uniform applicability of guidelines, victim justice and concluded that the punishment should be abolished except for in the matters of terrorism.

The commission also identified some systematic impediments such as lack of resources, outdated modes of investigation, over-stretched police force, ineffective prosecution, and poor legal aid making the administration of the death penalty vulnerable to errors.

[155] The stages of investigation such as obtaining pieces of evidence testimony lead to wrongful conviction demonstrate significant crisis points in the criminal justice system.

[163] This fact highlights broader issues with data collection in India's criminal justice system, as the country lacks comprehensive records of individuals who have been sentenced to death.

[164][165] On 14 August 2004 at Alipore Central Jail, Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged for the murder (following a rape) of 18-year-old Hetal Parekh at her apartment residence in Bhowanipore, West Bengal on 5 March 1990.